"Assured of their safety, I pressed down the cap on the casket, and bound the crystal ball securely in my waistband.
"Then I turned round to seize an iron hammer which I had brought with me for the deliberate purpose of smashing the accursed idol to pieces, partly in revenge, partly to secure the bejewelled eyeballs. But at that very moment I became possessed with the notion that I was not alone in the room. My heart beat wildly, and I raised aloft the little lamp. Nothing but four bare walls, and not even a window through which an enemy might be peering!
"I breathed again, and grasped the handle of the hammer. Yet my uneasy dread was still with me, for I paused once more, this time to listen. Not a sound without, or the whisper of a sound!
"But what was that?--the creak of a timber not louder than if a mouse had stirred. And, directed by the faint sound, I saw the wooden bolt that fastened the door on the inside heave, just once, as if by the pressure of a lever cautiously at work on the other side. The hammer slipped to the rug from my unnerved fingers.
"Lamp in hand, I stole to the door, on tiptoe, step by step, afraid to awaken the echo of a footfall. I touched the wooden bolt with a finger tip; I pressed my ear against the panel. And now, every fibre of my being at tension, my senses quickened by the unseen but certain presence of danger, I could hear at the other side of the thin boards the eager breathing of the fanatic devil of a priest who had come to slay me, miserably trapped like a panther in a pit. At this thought the very blood froze in my veins. My hand relaxed its hold on the lamp, and in its fall the light was extinguished.
"Alone in the dark with the Ganapati, and with the human tiger at the other side of the door, I shrieked aloud.
"In prompt answer to my cry of pent-up agony came the sharp sound of splintering timber, and before me, revealed by the flare of a torch held aloft in one hand, appeared the dread visage of the Hindu priest, contorted now by his mingled emotions of hate and triumph. For his eyes had lighted on the idol, and it was with a shout of joyful recognition, 'Ganapati! Ganapati!' that the fanatic flung himself upon me, and plunged a dagger into my throat. Then the curtain of black forgetfulness descended and covered me with its folds.